2004-03-20 - 5:05 p.m.

Grenada, East Caribbean Islands.

So, a friendly smile from a tropical isle. Americans! You may remember Grenada from such events as ripping it a new arsehole, er, I mean democracy in 1983, when Ronny R�s commie paranoia surpassed everyone�s expectations. True, the Grenada Revolution had seized power in a bloody coup, and they WERE harbouring Cuban sympathizers, but the Grenada Revolution focused for the most part on social, educational, and health issues, and those dangerous Cubans were mostly teachers, doctors, and middle-aged construction workers helping build the new airport. Still, as my old gran used to say, why let details get in the way of a good bombing campaign? The Cold War provided Ronaldo with just the excuse to open up a can of heavy military whoopass on the pinko loonies, and dangerous situations such as left wing governments dishing out free healthcare (who DO they think they are?) were (PHEW!) avoided. Go back to bed America, your Government is in control.

But anyway, they seemed to have bounced back, apart from the extreme poverty and unemployment and everything. Caribbean queen. Now we�re sharing the same dream.

I�m stuck in what I can only describe as a honeymoon concentration camp, where the untold horror of continuously piped Kenny G covers of Celine Dion songs provide a sonic backdrop to newly -married conformity. Mostly it�s American and Brit couples, now free from the threat of socialist administrators, and enjoying their god-given right to wander private beaches in beachwear that must have been bought during some kind of power cut. (�The lights have gone out, honey!� �Hell, just pay for whatever clothes are within reaching distance and let�s get out of here!�)

Everything is laid on, and people know they SHOULD be enjoying themselves, but just don�t seem to be able to manage it. Mostly they sit across dining tables with huge flowery cocktails, nodding their heads to �Michael Bolton sings UB40�, trying not to catch each other�s eye. I�m guessing they rushed into marriage without checking they had at least one thing to talk about for the next forty years. You can only enjoy the co-dependent distraction of ersatz jazz for so long, you know.

This morning was the obligatory street market, where every Caribbean clich� is played to the hilt to please the tourists, and the women on the stalls flirt outrageously just so you�ll buy some gift-wrapped spices. Nutmeg is the big thing here. They use it for everything � cooking with, making decorations, fuelling their vehicles, snorting off the bodies of young soap opera nymphettes, the lot. I seemed to be the only one in the party being approached to see if I wanted to buy hard drugs, probably themselves some kind of narcotic nutmeg derivative.

But the sun shines, I have a private pool (!) the sea is beautiful, cocktails spill forth from the heavens, I can now hear a steel drum version of a Mariah Carey song, and the threat of Communism is but a distant memory, disappeared like so much sun cream rubbed ineffectively in to pasty Brit bodies. I�m off to try and find something to drink that doesn�t contain coconut.